


paper planes in front of our eyes

by atlantisairlock



Category: Military Wives (2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Infidelity, F/F, Infidelity, One Night Stands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27346267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/atlantisairlock
Summary: Kate and Lisa sleep together after the bar/karaoke scene. Things develop differently from there.
Relationships: Kate Barkley/Lisa Lawson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	paper planes in front of our eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [newyorksnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/newyorksnow/gifts), [elizabthboland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizabthboland/gifts), [ensorcel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ensorcel/gifts).



> yes i DO blame [this fancam](https://twitter.com/sharonhorgans/status/1322663524527710208) for the existence of this fanfic thank you for asking 
> 
> title from 'paper planes' by elina.

There’s something about nights in Flitcroft that make everything seem distant. Even seated on a bench outside a bar in the middle of town, with the rest of the choir doing drunken karaoke inside, there’s a quiet peace to the moment. The air is cold but it doesn’t bite, and Lisa’s smile seems softer than usual - softer than what Kate’s used to, both of them always at odds over working styles and goals for the choir. Kate tells Lisa about Jamie; Lisa listens, quiet and respectful, and Kate’s reminded that, for all of Lisa’s faults, she’s honest and loyal and worthy of Kate’s trust. Lisa cares about people. It makes Kate want to care more, too.

When she makes a move to leave, Lisa stands and follows like she could never even conceive of anything else. “It’s a long walk back to the base,” she says like an explanation, hands tucked into her coat pockets, matching Kate pace for pace. Kate lets her. For all her pretenses, the smiles she wears so no one looks past them, she’s lonely. That much she can admit to herself. Heading back to an empty house feels less daunting with Lisa walking her home.

She’s tired and more than a little discouraged from their day out, the market performance that didn’t go as they hoped. She’s worried about Richard and misses Jamie so much it hurts. The night is quiet and feels heavy and she blames that for what she does when they reach her front door - for pausing on the step and turning back to Lisa. “Do you want to come in? Have a drink, maybe.”

Lisa smiles; a real thing, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Sure,” she says, following Kate into the living room. Kate helps her hang up her coat and shows Lisa into the kitchen, where she can evaluate the bare handful of wine she has in store. Her grin is amused and teasing when she bends to peer at the labels. “You _really_ don’t drink much, do you?”

Kate thinks of boxes stacked in the airing closet, shrugs and doesn’t respond; Lisa’s expression goes softer, more serious. “Good for you. Wish I could say the same. But it is what it is.” She picks a bottle of sauv blanc and uncorks it expertly, pouring them two glasses.

They sit on Kate’s couch, discussing the choir; Lisa talks about how they can improve, the next steps they can take, how to raise morale and keep the wives’ spirits up despite the poor performance at the market. Kate takes slow sips of her wine and watches her talk with her hands, the earnestness bleeding through her words. Her voice seems to echo in the hollow emptiness of her home. It’s late; everything seems louder and softer at the same time, pastel around the edges. Kate watches Lisa, and can’t stop watching her. Her hair is down, the top two buttons of her shirt undone - Kate realises, sudden and unexpected, that she’s beautiful. It’s a revelation that’s tinged with fuzzy wonderment that she never saw it before - no, she’s always known, objectively, that Lisa’s physically attractive, but it seems different tonight. It seems like something meant only for her - a secret, something to hold on to and hide in the space beneath her ribs. A truth that she can’t speak.

She finds herself reaching up to lay a hand against Lisa’s cheek before she can stop herself. Lisa trails off halfway through a sentence Kate doesn’t really hear, looking surprised, but she doesn’t pull away. “Kate?”

It takes her another moment before Kate comes back to some semblance of her senses, letting her hand drop back to her side. “Sorry,” she whispers, but she doesn’t stop looking at Lisa - looking at the way she looks back. Lisa swallows, carefully, deliberately setting her glass on the coffee table. Her glance darts down to Kate’s hand, then back up to her face. “What _is_ this, Kate?” She gestures expansively at their glasses of wine, at their knees brushing where they’re facing each other on the couch. “What are we doing right now?”

 _I don’t know,_ Kate thinks. She doesn’t know what she’s doing with - anything. Not with Richard, not with the choir - though she pretends - and not right now in her living room, late at night, cold sauv blanc lingering on her tongue and Lisa sitting beside her, staring at her with those deep green eyes, like she doesn’t want to look anywhere else. She’s so beautiful it makes Kate’s chest hurt. She’s so lonely, desperately, and she thinks, selfishly, she might not even want this, not really - she just wants to feel something. She doesn’t want to sleep alone.

Lisa makes a soft sound when Kate kisses her, something startled, and Kate feels Lisa’s hand against her shirt collar, fingers closing around the fabric - for a moment it feels like she might push her away. But it’s just a moment, and then Lisa’s kissing her back, heated and fervent. The wine is forgotten as they sink into the couch, legs tangled, Kate’s world narrowing down to the insistent press of Lisa’s mouth against hers. She’s soft, all curves, skin warm, lips dark red when Kate pulls back to look at her again. Her face is flushed, and she grins at Kate, pupils dilated, breathing deep in a way that stirs something in the base of her stomach, making her want more. Lisa leans up to brush her lips against Kate’s cheek, just by the shell of her ear. “So, where’s your bedroom?”

It stops her in her tracks for a second. That voice in the back of her mind reminding her that they’re both married, husbands off in Afghanistan, and they shouldn’t be doing this. Deep down she knows she’s going to regret this in the morning. They’re almost friends now, her and Lisa, and she knows, without question, that this will destroy something good between them.

She should stop. She should put some distance between them and show Lisa out and let this be all it is - one little mistake. One moment of weakness in the dead of night. She should.

But Lisa’s mouth finds hers again, sweet and hot and wet, and Kate finds her resolve crumbling. _It’s not morning yet,_ she decides, and before she can regret it, she takes Lisa’s hand, helps her off the couch and leads her down the hallway.

For one blissful moment when she awakens the next morning she’s exactly where she’s supposed to be and everything is absolutely right in the world. The sun has barely risen, the faintest golden rays shining through the curtains; the bed is warm and she’s got a new day ahead of her.

“Hi,” she hears, and her heart almost stops.

It all rushes back at once. Kate turns her head to see Lisa beside her in bed, backlit by the morning sun, propped up on one elbow and looking at her with that familiar soft smile. Nervous and happy, sated and hopeful all at once; she bites her lip and beams a little wider as she reaches across to push Kate’s hair behind her ear. “Good morning.”

Kate stares back, no response forthcoming. Her brain seems to still be getting into gear, still a little addled from sleep. Panic rises up her throat, leadening her tongue. Lisa’s in her bed - Lisa’s still in her bed, after the events of the night before, after they - shit. _Shit._

In the cold light of dawn, she still looks like the loveliest thing Kate’s ever laid eyes on and the surge of want that crests inside her meets the rising wave of burgeoning terror. She feels the weight of her wedding ring around her finger and it feels like a hand around her throat, choking her, mocking her. Lisa’s smiling, hair sleep-mussed, leaning in to touch her lips to Kate’s cheek, briefly. “You look nice even when you’ve just woken up.”

 _You do, too,_ Kate wants to say. In another world where they weren’t married, where this could actually _happen,_ it would roll off her tongue. But here and now Kate looks back at Lisa and can only think _Richard,_ can only think _Red_ and _Jamie_ and _Frankie,_ and it makes her stomach sink. She wants to pin Lisa back against the bed and kiss her, slow and hot, like they did the night before, she wants, god she wants - but instead her hand lands on Lisa’s shoulder and pushes her away. Kate turns to get off the bed, look for her clothes and change. “You should leave.”

Silence for a second; Kate opens her closet to look for something to put on, hands shaking. She doesn’t look at Lisa, but it still makes her flinch when she hears the confusion and hurt in her reply. “What?”

“You should leave,” she repeats, trying to be firm about it, making it as cold and final as she possibly can. She has to - she has to, because if she doesn’t, she’s going to fuck up again, she’s going to let herself succumb to temptation and ruin her own life.

And she almost does, when Lisa shuffles out of bed, coming to Kate’s side, pulling her in to face her. She doesn’t even look angry, just bewildered. “Kate, come on. Don’t - “

“Please _get out of my house,”_ Kate says, louder this time. “I really can’t have you here, Lisa. Please go.”

The silence stretches again. Lisa’s expression shifts, morphing into something ugly and bitter, flint-edged anger in her eyes; it makes Kate’s heart hurt but she can’t look away. Lisa moves stiffly, picking her clothes off the floor, muttering under her breath as she pulls her crumpled shirt back on. “You seemed pretty happy about _having me here_ last night,” she snarls as she buttons it back up. She stalks across the room, radiating fury as she wrenches Kate’s bedroom door open. “Well, fuck you too, Kate. Thanks for nothing.”

The door slams behind her and Kate hears her storming down the stairs; she hesitates for a second before reluctantly following. Apologies brim in her mouth, warring with the pain beginning to splinter between her ribs. She doesn’t want Lisa to leave. She wants, so badly, so selfishly, to catch her by the wrist and pull her in and kiss her again. But she can’t, she just can’t, and she knows Lisa knows that too. She doesn’t know how to say it. The words get lost somewhere in her lungs while she watches Lisa pull her shoes on, jaw set and shoulders tense. She casts a scathing glare in Kate’s direction. “You know, you’re the one who asked me to come in last night. But why the fuck am I not surprised that you make stupid decisions and won’t stand by them?”

“That’s not fair,” Kate begins, and Lisa barks a harsh laugh that cuts her off. “Right, yeah, I’m so bloody sorry, Captain Kate. Sorry I got the wrong idea from someone who invited me in and kissed me and took me to bed and then decided in the morning that whoops, maybe this wasn’t what she wanted after all. Would’ve been nice if you’d figured that out yesterday.”

Kate tempers her own anger that’s beginning to rise, though her mouth still moves without her complete permission. “Can we not pretend I’m the only one here who - you wanted it too. You kissed me back.”

“Of course I fucking wanted it!” Lisa screams, making Kate jump. She lets out a choked sound, harsh in its despair and pain, achingly hard to hear. She covers her face with a hand, and Kate realises she’s starting to cry. Everything in her screams to rush over and take Lisa in her arms again, but she stays rooted where she stands. Just watching as Lisa furiously wipes her tears away, doing up the laces on her boots and refusing to look at Kate. Her voice trembles. “Of course I wanted it. You fucking idiot.”

Kate’s throat is dry, the words scraping past it as she forces herself to exhale them. “Lisa, we’re both married.”

“Yeah,” Lisa replies, bitter. She gets to her feet and turns to the door. “And I wanted it.”

She exits with a loud slam of the front door, leaves Kate frozen in her hallway with her heart shattered at her feet. It’s a long, long hour before she can breathe normally again.

She clears their glasses, left overnight on the coffee table, rinses them off in the sink. When she puts them out to dry she realises there are tears dripping down her face too. “I’m sorry,” she whispers to empty air, for no one’s ears but her own, fixing nothing that she’s broken.

She spends an entire day thinking about what to do. Reaching for her phone to text Lisa, then chickening out. Wanting to walk over to her house and apologise, then thinking about a door being slammed in her face and her resolve quailing.

Almost. She almost manages to gather the courage to send a text message. She drafts it right before she goes to bed again - alone - and stares at it for a solid ten minutes before putting her phone back down and resolving to send it in the morning.

Then she gets the call.

Lisa is there when they meet Crooks to hear about what happened to Liam. She has her arms folded and doesn’t give Kate a second glance. Kate tries to listen, tries to be Colonel Barkley’s wife and not _Kate_ \- Kate, who fucks up everything good that she lays her hands on. Richard is breathing. Richard is alive and on his way home and he’s going to be okay. For Sarah’s sake she has to be professional and put aside all other concerns to be there for her.

The choir comes to Sarah with food and comfort and sympathy while they’re talking through Liam’s funeral and service; there’s enough of them crammed into Sarah’s living room that nobody notices how steadfastly Lisa ignores her and focuses on shooting Sarah gentle smiles and reassuring her. She doesn’t get a chance to get Lisa alone to talk, and part of her is almost grateful for it. Every time she looks at Lisa the words get lost somewhere in her spleen. She doesn’t know how to bridge the chasm she’s opened up between them with one terrible decision.

It’s worse when Richard makes it home. She finds out from Crooks that he didn’t need to be on the tour, that he volunteered, and first she’s angry at him - angry that he would risk his life knowing he could have died halfway around the world and left her behind, all alone, mourning both him and Jamie. Angry that he left that gaping void that had her lonely and desperate, shipwrecked, grasping for anything that could fill that empty space yawning wide inside her, even if that ‘anything’ was another man’s wife. For the briefest, worst moment of her life she’s angry that he came back. She thinks about a world in which he died, just like Liam, when she would’ve been left a widow, answering to nobody but herself. When she would’ve been free to go to Lisa’s doorstep and offer herself up as a choice, asking Lisa to choose her, and maybe hearing her say yes -

She hates herself for it the second the thought crosses her mind; she’s so, so angry at herself for even allowing it to surface, which means she’s got that rage roiling beneath her skin when she meets Richard in the hospital. It makes her tongue sharp and her words cutting and she knows Richard doesn’t protest because he thinks he deserves it a little, even if he doesn’t know the basis of her frustration.

It really, really doesn’t help when Lisa calls her as she’s leaving the hospital, tells her the choir doesn’t want to do the Festival of Remembrance any longer. Kate presses her fingers to her aching temple and tries to keep her voice level when she replies. “If we pull out now, it will reflect badly on all of us,” she says. “And I’d hoped that even if you were angry with me, you could still be professional about this.”

She hears Lisa’s cold silence from the other end of the line, all too clearly. “For your information, the wives came to the decision on their own, in light of what happened to _Liam,”_ she replies. “This might be a foreign concept to you, but not everything is about you, Captain Kate.”

Dial tone before Kate can respond. Kate rests her forehead against the steering wheel and tries to breathe.

Richard isn’t present for Liam’s funeral, still not in good enough shape for the doctors to give him the green light to even get out of bed. Kate stands alone in the church pews trying not to think about all the ways the service reminds her of Jamie’s. Lisa stands behind her with Frankie by her side and Kate thinks of Red, still on the tour. Lisa has a loving husband, a daughter, a stable home, the white picket fence for all means and purposes. Kate thinks about her crying in her front hall a week ago, screaming at her - _I wanted it_ \- and doesn’t understand what Lisa sees in her, what Lisa thinks Kate can offer that would be worth giving it all up.

She wouldn’t give up Richard, the safety and warmth and stability that he represents, for the faintest sliver of a potential future with Lisa.

She wants so badly to believe that.

She decides to be angry at Lisa because it’s easier to justify than being angry with Richard and easier to articulate than being angry with herself. She snipes at Lisa when she suggests the idea of writing their own song, to the discontented grumbles of the choir. She doesn’t expect Lisa to agree, to put the idea aside, sit down and just let the wives defend her. Kate swallows hard when Jess speaks up and says she thinks they should have a song that’s theirs, that’s really by them and about them, and realises Lisa might not be the unprofessional one here.

“Okay,” she relents, being as gracious as she can about it. “Let’s figure this out. Lisa, how do you want to do this?”

Lisa gives her a brief, startled look, then composes herself and pulls out some of her letters from Red, explaining her idea again for Kate’s benefit. When the wives start providing more input she meets Kate’s gaze and nods once, a gesture of understanding. They can be coworkers who can lead the choir together. That’s all they need to be. She can do that. It was just one mistake. They can move past it. It means she’s lost a friend but it doesn’t matter; Kate can survive losing a friend. Even if still stings whenever she looks at Lisa, even if sometimes she lies awake at night and wonders how the morning after could’ve gone differently. She’s made her choice, she can live with it.

Right?

The choir drills hard in the weeks moving up to the Festival of Remembrance, mostly singing other songs and training their endurance, making sure they’ve got their vocal ranges down, making sure they can sing together as a cohesive team. They run drafts of the song every so often, but the lyrics keep changing - Lisa’s brows get more furrowed with every practice, furiously taking notes and crossing lines out and adding new ones. She doesn’t ever get frustrated with the wives, but it’s more than evident that she’s having problems putting the song together.

Kate finds herself wanting to offer her help, once or twice. Something always holds her back, though. Partly because she’s pretty sure Lisa wouldn’t be particularly receptive to another pair of hands on deck right now, no matter who it might be, but also because…

Kate knows Lisa works on the song alone, and mostly at home when Frankie’s out or asleep. She thinks about sitting in Lisa’s living room with papers strewn around them, nobody else around to observe, and all she can think about is how easy it would be to lean across, tip her chin up and kiss her again. She wants it and she hates that she wants it. She wants to blame it on her loneliness, on her mind projecting that onto someone she’s close to, but now Richard’s back and sleeping in the same bed and it’s getting a lot harder to lie to herself.

Back before they started working together for real, Kate didn’t like so many things about Lisa - didn’t like her, period. She didn’t like the casualness with which she treated - well, anything, really; didn’t like her tendency towards sarcasm and bluntness. If she were to be honest, and it’s always been so hard for her to be, she spent a lot of time thinking she was better than Lisa, and now she’s ashamed at herself for it. Lisa’s honest, even to the point of injury, and here Kate is not having even admitted to herself let alone her husband that she’s falling for someone else. That if everything was different, if she was given a choice here and now, she doesn’t know if she would still pick Richard over everything.

Lisa continues fretting over the song and Kate keeps her mouth shut. They’re slowly figuring out a status quo where they don’t ever speak to each other beyond choir practices and pretend to all the world that they’re simply colleagues - it works; Kate trusts that Lisa doesn’t want to jeopardise it and neither does she. She’ll figure the song out on her own. It’ll work out.

She believes that, she does, until the day of the Festival of Rememberance itself, when she reaches the coach with her dress and bags and hears Annie reading a familiar line that turns her blood to ice.

_Till we laugh again._

Lisa offers her a song sheet with the lyric printed there, clear as day. She talks about filling a gap, about Kate being the only person who didn’t have a line from her letters included in the song, but all Kate can hear is Lisa’s soft, low sigh, the way she gasped when Kate slid her hand under her shirt that night, weeks ago. Conversation with Richard has been chilly and stilted since he returned, and she doesn’t feel anything when he kisses her goodnight. She’s been trying to pretend it isn’t because of Lisa - she’s been trying to pretend she could move beyond that night and simply never acknowledge it again, and all she can see in Lisa’s inclusion of Jamie’s line is cruel mockery, betraying Kate’s confidences because Kate betrayed hers.

She regrets what she says about Frankie the moment the words leave her mouth. She knows it’s a low, low blow - even attacking Lisa and her skill at songwriting is one thing, harsh and uncalled for, but dragging Frankie into it is nothing but spite and cruelty. She hates herself for it immediately, and who the hell has she become, she wonders, that she can no longer look herself in the mirror without being ashamed? She heaves deep breaths, staring at the ground, only seeing Lisa in her peripheral vision, but even then she can see the hurt in her expression. It’s so familiar and it opens wounds in Kate that she knows never really healed.

She wants to hate Lisa so badly. She wants to mean the horrible things she says because it would be so much easier than wanting her and knowing she can’t have her. When Kate thinks about the night they shared, their first kiss, now weeks past, she remembers making herself believe that she only wanted a warm body in her bed. It’s not true now and it wasn’t true then and maybe if she were stronger she wouldn’t have taken this long to admit it to herself.

“You don’t hand out blowjobs. You do them with your mouth,” Lisa says, and Kate realises that amidst their professionalism, the tense unspoken pretence between them, she forgot Lisa never really stopped being angry at her the way Kate was angry at herself. Lisa’s not cruel but she can give as damn good as she gets - she knows Kate, knows what to say that will hurt her most. The other women quietly move into the coach as Lisa’s shouting at Kate, quickly realising their fight isn’t something they want to witness. It means they thankfully don’t have an audience but it also means Lisa’s willing to say what she can’t talk about in front of the wives, as caustic as she wants. She comes up close to Kate, almost too close, furious. “You know what? I don’t know why I let anything you say affect me. God knows you don’t mean any of it.” She takes a breath and casts a quick look at the coach, making sure nobody else can hear her. “You know, Kate, if you had any fucking guts at all, you’d stop pretending you’re angry at me for any other goddamn reason but the fact that you offered and I had the nerve to accept. You’re the one who kissed me. And I’m not the one pretending I don’t still want to.”

Kate feels herself falter as she looks at Lisa and Lisa doesn’t flinch. “Do you - you still…?”

Lisa casts her a single disgusted glare. “Not right now, that’s for damn sure, because I didn’t fall in love with a fucking coward.”

Kate thinks if Lisa had slapped her across the face right that instant it would hurt her less. Before her thoughts can properly coalesce she moves blindly over to her dress and bags, picks them up and turns to leave. If Lisa calls her name she doesn’t hear it. She can’t speak, can’t think, can’t breathe. All she knows is that if she stays in Lisa’s presence one second longer she will do yet another thing she regrets, yet another thing she can never come back from.

She cries all the way home and is still crying when she gets into Dave’s front seat and grips the steering wheel, sobbing so hard she’s shaking. Richard knocks on the passenger door and asks if he can come in, and she almost says no.

She knows the moment they make eye contact that it’s over, Lisa be damned. She can’t keep lying to herself and that means she can’t keep lying to him. She lost her son to war, she lost Lisa to her weakness, and she will lose Richard to her truth, and then she will be alone and it will be what she deserves.

 _If I could go back,_ she thinks in despair, and a voice in her head laughs scornfully and dares her to pretend she’d make a different choice in the face of Lisa on her couch in her living room, looking at her with that devastatingly lovely smile. Richard rests a tentative hand on Kate’s shoulder and she looks up at him, eyes red and throat choked. “I need to talk to you.”

“I’m listening,” he says. Gentle and kind and understanding. She doesn’t deserve him and she knows it all too well. Kate ineffectually attempts at wiping her face and speaks, shuddering. “I slept with Lisa while you were gone.”

Not a flicker in Richard’s placid expression. “And?”

Kate feels the sudden blinding urge to hit him, doesn’t let herself give in to it. “Your _wife_ just told you she slept with another woman while you were getting blown up in Afghanistan and your response is _and?”_

He catches her hands in his, rests his forehead against hers and sighs. “I knew, Kate.” He doesn’t let go of her hands even as her breath hitches and she tries to pull back. “Or… I guessed. It didn’t take a genius to figure out something had happened between you two while I was on tour.”

Kate squeezes her eyes shut, trying to speak past the lump in her throat. “Aren’t you _angry?”_

Richard doesn’t answer. “Are you in love with her?”

“I’m your _wife,”_ she replies, well aware it’s not an answer either. Richard laughs and there’s no mirth in it. “Does that matter? I don’t think you’ve been in love with me for a long time, Kate.”

 _That’s not true,_ Kate wants to yell, but her tongue feels too big for her mouth, and she turns away. The _not since Jamie_ hangs heavy in the air between them, and if she thinks back far enough, lets herself probe into the darkest recesses of her mind she doesn’t want to look at - maybe even before. She doesn’t remember what it felt like to say yes to Richard’s proposal, years upon years ago. She doesn’t recognise the woman in her wedding pictures and in his silence she’s beginning to realise that maybe he doesn’t either. “Are you?”

He sighs, pulling back and giving her a grave look. “I wanted to be.” He pauses, weighing his words, then letting them fall like pebbles into water. “I didn’t go on this tour despite knowing I wouldn’t come back, Kate. I went because.”

Kate breathes and tries to hold on to her slow inhales. She thinks about standing in a tunnel in the rain with the choir, meeting Lisa’s eyes and hearing their voices echo in the space, mingling together. A symphony. Sitting on a bench outside a bar on a cold night and feeling more at home than she had under her own roof in a damn long time.

“I said such horrible things,” she whispers. “I think she hates me now. I think all the women do - I ran off and left them and now they’re headed to London without me - “

Richard hums, reaching into Dave’s glovebox and finding the car keys. “You won’t know until you go speak to her again,” he says. “And as for London…”

Kate snorts, almost a laugh. “We’ll never make it in time.”

But Richard doesn’t put the keys back in the glovebox, and Kate hesitates just one moment more before taking them and putting them in the ignition.

Lisa might not be waiting for her in London, but the choir is. If nothing else, she owes it to them to be there, singing by their sides. It takes five tries and both of them getting out of the car and heaving it up the driveway, but as the engine starts up and they race away to London, Kate finally feels something settle inside her, the knowledge that she’s finally doing something right.

She still has an apology drafted in her phone that she was supposed to text Lisa, when she’d still thought the mistake was kissing her, and not pushing her away when all she wanted was to hold her tight. Kate looks within herself and finds that she finally has the courage to say it. No more lies, no more saying things she doesn’t mean because she’s too afraid of the things she wants.

“I am,” she says to Richard as they roar down the A1, trying to make it to London in time. Richard casts her a questioning look and she smiles back - still a shaky thing, but true. “I’m in love with her.”

And because he’s still too good for her, he squeezes her hand and gives her a reassuring smile in return. “It’s going to be okay, Kate.”

And for once, she believes it.

She’s not entirely sure where she’s going when she makes it to the Royal Albert Hall; some helpful signs get her into the artist and crew entrance but the backstage area is still crowded and massive and she has no idea where the choir is until she hears a familiar, welcome voice. “Kate!”

She’s never been so happy to turn around and see Lisa there, looking shocked and relieved and apologetic all at once. Kate takes two steps towards her and Lisa meets her halfway, and they’re kissing before she can really think twice about it. Kate feels Lisa relax, the tension in her shoulders visibly leaving, kissing her back with an urgency Kate understands all too well.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs against Lisa’s lips. “I’m so sorry. For pushing you away, for what I said just now, for - everything.”

Lisa makes this quiet, almost broken sound. “No, fuck, Kate, I - I’m sorry, okay, I shouldn’t have - you’re not a coward, I’m sorry I said it, I didn’t mean any of it - “

“You said you fell in love with me,” Kate replies, and Lisa falls silent. “Did you mean that?”

Lisa’s shaking fingers brush against Kate’s cheek, her chin held high, firm, always honest even in her fear. “Yeah. I meant that.” She swallows, jaw pulled tight. “I know we’re both - I know I shouldn’t, Kate. Shit.” Her palm finds the curve of Kate’s jaw, her touch warm, something Kate wants to seal in amber and hold on to forever. “I should’ve said no, that night, when you asked me to come in.”

Kate just smiles and regards her. “You don’t really mean that.”

Lisa laughs. She sounds exhausted but longing, hopeful. “Red’s going to hate me forever,” she says quietly. “And Frankie, definitely. She’ll probably choose to live with him when we get divorced and never see me again. And I think the wives might hate us too.” She smiles and shakes her head. “We’ll probably have to move off the base and live in a shitty little apartment and work jobs that barely cover the rent and things will be shit for a long, long time.”

She’s right. Kate doesn’t have any illusions that this life of theirs, if they choose to build it together, is going to be easy. It will mean giving up everything they’ve known and picking each other over all of it. It feels terrifying and daunting and for all of that, Kate knows in her bones it’s not a no to her anyway. “Do you regret it? Kissing me back that night?”

Lisa laughs again; it’s less bitter this time, less tired, and it sounds like music to Kate’s ears. “I don’t regret anything about you, Kate Barkley.”

“Neither do I,” she says softly. She steps into Lisa’s warm embrace, rests her cheek against Lisa’s shoulder and feels Lisa kiss her temple. They’ve got to get to the choir, be on stage for the final check in an hour, and then they’ll have to face everything to come after that. It won’t always be as simple as pulling Lisa into a kiss and letting the world around them fade away.

But for this moment, standing backstage at the Albert Hall and hearing Lisa’s heart beat in sync with hers, they are forever.


End file.
